Copy-paste is one of the most common features across devices. However, without the hidden clipboard behind the scenes keeping track of everything you copy, this feature would be impossible to implement.
A clipboard is basically a temporary place where copied items go before they are ‘pasted’ to their new destination. But if you copy another item before moving the previous one, the former is removed from the clipboard.
But it’s not lost forever — well, as it turns out, not anymore. In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can check and recover your Android’s clipboard history.
Also read: How to hide apps on Android without disabling or uninstalling them?
Checking and Recovering Android clipboard
Here are a couple of ways you can retrieve your Android’s clipboard.
How to check and recover Android clipboard history using the GBoard keyboard?
GBoard is the official keyboard app from Google and is installed in a majority of Android devices by default. Even if it isn’t, a quick search on Google Play Store will let you download or update the app.
The keyboard has a built-in clipboard manager that keeps track of all the text that you cut or copied up to an hour ago.
Here’s how you can use this feature to check and recover your android clipboard.
- Tap on the three horizontal dots on the top-right of your keyboard.
- Tap on Clipboard.
- Here you’ll be able to see everything that you cut or copied. You can also pin specific text here by tapping it and pressing the pin icon.
Also read: How to check and restrict app permissions on your Android device?
Using dedicated clipboard managing apps
There are multiple third party clipboard managing apps on the Google Play Store that’ll give you even greater control over what type on data you can save on the clipboard, for how long and the actual amount of data you can save.
Some apps offer categorization as well as the ability to share your clipboard content in the form of QR codes. However, since these apps dig deep into your phone’s system, you’re also going to have to give them some serious permissions.
As with any app that works closely with the system, keep your eyes open for any security or privacy threats. Make sure to only give the permissions the app absolutely needs and to go through the reviews before downloading any app.
We do not suggest you copy sensitive information like your passwords, PINs, credit card details or anything else onto your clipboard, especially when using a third-party app to manage that. In case you do have sensitive data on your clipboard, delete it before proceeding.
Some of the clipboard apps that you can try from the Play Store are:
Also read: How to get Android notifications on Windows?
Is there any way to recover texts that are not pinned and are deleted . I have an important text copied but I didn’t recover it before an hour.. so is there any way that I can retrieve the text.. it’s been a day since that happend.. help me ASAP!!
Hey Lalith,
Unfortunately, unless you were using a dedicated clipboard app, I don’t think that’s going to be possible now.
The post doesn’t contain what I need though. I want to recover my unpinned text in the clipboard that have been gone for a day now. The text is really important for me – please help In anyway you can 🙏
Hey Daniel,
If you’re using Gboard, you can only recover unpinned text from over an hour ago. So unless you either pinned the text on your clipboard or were using a dedicated clipboard app I’m afraid the text is gone now.